Checkup: Health news in brief

Published 1:11 pm, Tuesday, July 16, 2013

CT scans and cancer risk

CT scans performed on children are increasing the risk for future cancer, a study suggests.

Researchers writing online last month in JAMA Pediatrics counted the number of CT scans performed on children younger than 15 from 1996 to 2010 in seven American health care systems, and calculated the average dose of radiation delivered to the head, abdomen, chest or spine.

The researchers calculate that if the highest doses — those in the top one-quarter — could be reduced to match the average dose, future cancers would be reduced by 43 percent.

Depression, young brains

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, researchers have found brain changes in preschool-age children with depression that are not apparent in their non-depressed peers.

The study, in the July issue of The Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, examined 23 children 4 to 6 years old who had been diagnosed with depression and 31 of their healthy peers. None of the subjects were taking antidepressants.

The children underwent MRI brain scans while viewing pictures of happy, sad, fearful or neutral faces.